


What Should Never Be but Always Is

by orphan_account



Series: Call the Midwife [1]
Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: Fake Episode, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-18 16:40:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5935435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An idea for a possible CTM episode</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Pain Behind the Smile

**Author's Note:**

> It has surprised me that CTM has not attacked rape, so I decided to outline an episode dealing with it... Partial to the Delia/Patsy pairing

“We have a violent assault coming in!” Delia shouted to the other nurses down the hall. Replacing the telephone on the receiver, the brunette idly glanced around the otherwise deserted hospital halls and released a huff of air. It was two in the morning and she was working as the security officer, which was actually a very busy job because not many nurses worked the night shift. With virtually no doctors there to terrorize the nurses, Delia found it extremely peaceful; accept, of course, when things like this happened.

The young nurses who she had shouted at now gathered apprehensively by the double-doors, awaiting the ambulance. Silence descended once more, and Delia knew how it went. There would be held breaths and pent up silence, like the silence that precedes a play. These girls were new, as they always were on this shift, and their nervousness was palpable in the way they glanced from one another, not talking. In the distance, through the window, Delia caught sight of the ambulance lights flashing in relative quiet, through the silent streets of sleeping London. The other nurses saw it too and shifted uncomfortably.

Delia closed her eyes momentarily and breathed out slowly as the ambulance drew up to the doors.  
And then all hell broke loose.

“We have severe bleeding and multiple lacerations!” a male EMT shouted as the doors cracked open and the gurney was rolled in. A nurse next to Delia turned around and vomited while a collective gasp ran through the rest.

“There is also heavy bruising and trauma to the head!” he continued, holding a stained bandage over the woman’s chest. Delia’s stomach turned to ice and a mixture of hatred and sickening dread filled her.

The woman was covered in blood, the most pooling under her shirt, around her groin. Dirty blonde hair was slicked back by a mixture of blood and muck, exposing a bruised face with eyes that were swollen shut. A soundless howl escaped from the woman’s lips and there appeared to be several stab wounds variously spaced around her body.  
Fighting back the bile building up in her throat, Delia choked out, “Take her to the examination room.”

She then quickened her stride back into the empty secretary’s office, her heart hammering in her chest. With shaking hands, she went to the phone chart and ran her finger over the on-call ER doctor. Dialing the number, the phone rang twice before it was picked up.

“Hello?” an irritated and tired voice asked.

Trying to keep her voice from shaking, Delia asked, “Is this Doctor Fredrick?”

“Yes,” the doctor sighed, “What is it?”

“Sir,” Delia managed, “We have…um…there is a violent assault that just arrived…severe blood loss, multiple lacerations, head trauma…”

“Can’t you just patch her up and send her to the police station?”

Stunned by his lack of care, Delia drew herself upright, “Doctor, she is bleeding excessively and needs stitches. Bandages would not help.”

“Have you examined her? Would bandages hold her until, say, six o’clock?”

Delia bit her tongue and ground her heel into the tile floor, unable to procure an immediate response. Just then the door opened and a nurse poked her head in.

“Excuse me, Doctor.” Delia turned to the nurse expectantly.

The nurse’s face was devoid of color as she asked in a hoarse voice, “Is that the ER doctor?”

“Yes, Franny, it is,” Delia responded.

Nodding, Franny continued, “The patient has lost a lot of blood is close to going into shock. Without stitches, she will die soon.”

Turning back to the phone, Delia sighed, “I have just been informed that the patient is entering shock.”

There was a long pause, and then, “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”


	2. The Core of Existence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Delia goes back in search of Patsy's comfort and learns more of her past

Delia trudged back to the Nonnatus House, feeling as if a dead-weight was crushing her chest. “Hold it together,” she told herself, “You are still in uniform!” A never-ending night shift with a patient who had been violated in such a way made her want to run to Patsy and cling to her. The beginnings of the sun’s rays were creeping into the sky, though Delia did not stop to admire them as she normally did. Around her London was beginning to wake up, but she paid no heed, her only intention being to curl up next to her love and cry herself to sleep.

Tugging her feet up the stairs, Delia pulled the large door open without feeling the trepidation that used to encase her when she ventured inside the Nunnery. Ever since Sister Julienne invited her to stay, she had to get used to barging in nonchalantly.

The foyer was dark and eerie, though Delia could just make out the murmurings of the nuns as they made their way to prayer. Trying to be quiet she tip-toed towards the staircase, only to hear a familiar voice address her.

“Nurse Busby,” Nurse Crane said in greeting, “Hard night at the London?”

Delia stopped and turned to look at the older midwife, attempting to force a smile on her face. Nurse Crane was sitting idly at the phone table, her reading glasses perched on her nose as she filled out a cross-word puzzle.

“It had its ups’ and downs’,” Delia finally croaked. The tears were threatening; her resolve was melting away…

Nurse Crane removed her glasses and squinted at the young brunette, concern spreading across her face.

“Try not to get too upset, it’s not good for your condition,” Nurse Crane said gently.

Stiffening slightly, Delia sniffed, “Yes, of course.” She then marched upstairs, leaving Nurse Crane to gape after her.

Delia muttered under her breath while hot, angry tears began to course down her cheeks. She was so sick and tired of being reminded of her ‘condition’; it was almost as if she was forbidden from expressing any extreme normal human emotion. Sure, it made her feel faint and periodically made her forget some things, but bottling it all up and trying to breathe it away just made her feel drained and useless. Wiping away the tears with the edge of her sleeve, Delia gently pressed the bedroom door open and slipped through, closing it behind her.

“Pats,” she whispered, “Pats, are you awake?” In the far bed against the wall lay the ginger-haired beauty, her covers drawn above her head so the weak sunlight from the window would not disturb her. At the sound of Delia’s voice, Patsy shifted the covers down and smiled warmly at her, pleasure erupting over her face.

“Good morning, love!” Patsy whispered gently, her eyes glowing slightly. Her smile faltered however, when she saw the soft tears trailing down Delia’s face, now coming down in earnest ever since Delia crossed the threshold of the room.

“Delia? What’s happened, are you alright?!” Patsy demanded shrilly, alarm spreading across her face. She scooted over in her single bed, inviting Delia to sit with her. Now sobbing soundlessly, Delia took only one step forward before faltering and slowly collapsing onto her knees. Her whole body was shaking with tearful howls as Patsy leapt up and wrapped her arms around the brunette and cradled her gently.

Alarmed, Patsy asked, “My love, my heart, what is wrong?!”

“A girl…came in…raped…I didn’t know…what to do!” Delia sobbed, “None of the…nurses helped…I had to… hold her hand… and I lied! I told her…it would be…okay! But…it…wasn’t!” Delia managed between strangled gasps.

“Oh, my love!” Patsy cried quietly, clutching Delia closer. It was at this moment that Delia finally released all of her angst from that morning and purged it from her body in the form of gasps, tears, and slobber.

“I…I…I…” Delia tried to say, but all too soon the words left her and she was surrounded by a wordless void, the only letter in her existence, the letter “I”.  
Patsy tensed and pulled back, allowing Delia to see the havoc she had wrecked on Patsy’s rather charming pajama top. Gazing at Delia gently yet sternly, Patsy took Delia’s face in her hands and steadied her trembling form.

“Delia,” Patsy murmured, “It is okay, but you need to calm down.”

“I…I…I…”

“Delia,” Patsy whispered, her breath cooling Delia’s tear-streaked face, “Breathe in…Breathe out…”

Delia’s shaky gasps grew longer, albeit only slightly.

“I know you are scared,” Patsy said, wiping away Delia’s tears with her thumbs, “but you need to slow down your breathing, love.”

Patsy coached Delia for a few more minutes until her breathing was steadier and only slightly shaky.

“I…I thought she was going to die,” Delia finally managed, her eyes trained on Patsy’s, “I thought she was going to die, right in front of me, I would not have been able to do anything to help her.”

Patsy’s eyes grew softer and a silent cry issued from her lips before she took Delia’s hands in her own.

“I’m sure you did everything you could,” Patsy whispered, “and sometimes that is all we can do.”

Delia held her gaze for a moment before nodding thoughtfully.

“Oh, Delia,” Patsy murmured before leaning in and pressing her lips against the other’s. Delia tasted the salt of her own tears through the kiss and smelled Patsy’s scent and felt her reassuring warmth. All of a sudden a wave of exhaustion ran over the brunette. When the two pulled back, Delia blinked through her film of tears sheepishly.

“When does your shift start?” Delia said in a much steadier voice.

“I was out until midnight on a call,” Patsy responded, tracing patterns in Delia’s palm, “So Sister Mary Cynthia and Trixie have agreed to do the district rounds this morning while Nurse Crane and Sister Winifred are on call. I’m free all this morning. Under other circumstances I would have suggested a coffee, but…”

Smiling weakly, Delia whispered, “I think I could do with some sleep.”

Sighing as if making some great sacrifice, Patsy rose up and helped Delia to her feet while announcing, “Then sleep it is then!”

Delia began to tremble so badly from exhaustion that her knees were knocking together so she clung to Patsy, her nails digging into her shoulder.

“Deels?” Patsy asked cautiously, concern flashing across her face as she wrapped her arms bracingly around the brunette.

“It’s okay, not a seizure; not a seizure,” Delia said reassuringly.

“Well I know that, silly,” Patsy said with a smirk, even though Delia could not see it, “You haven’t had a violent fit in three months.”

“Really?” Delia asked in disbelief as Patsy worked Delia’s feet over her own and began to shuffle the invalid backwards, towards the bed.

“Well yes, the last one was when we were going to…ah…”

“Oh!”

“Yes,” Patsy said, lowering Delia onto the bed, “scared the absolute daylights out of me. Apparently we had jumped the gun.”

Face flushing red, Delia muttered, “Sorry.”

Patsy helped Delia lay completely down before suddenly straddling the brunette and pressing her forehead against the other’s, staring intently into her eyes.

“Don’t you ever apologize…ever,” Patsy whispered quietly, a dark glint in her eye, “I thought I lost you and would have had to die an old maid…or worse.”

Despite the seriousness of Patsy’s tone, Delia managed to ask humorously, “…or worse?”

Patsy leaned back and rolled her eyes playfully before saying, “You know, having to marry a man and have children and do…that…with them…” A shudder of dread ran through Patsy’s body as if to reinforce her point.

A troubled look came across Delia’s face and she bit her lip. It was at these times that she felt so foolish, forgetting a rather obvious or important fact that was too embarrassing to ask.

“What?” Patsy asked warily, eyeing Delia’s expression.

“It’s just that… Oh, I feel like such an idiot!”

“Why?” Patsy demanded, alarm suffusing her features.

Face flushing red, Delia muttered, “I-I forgot…something.”

Looking slightly relieved, the ginger asked lightly, “Oh, well what is it?”

“Have we ever…I mean, you said try and I can’t seem to remember if…if we tried it again or did it before…”

Patsy’s face became a temporary mask before an extreme sadness seemed to come over her. She rolled to the side and lay down next to Delia, squashed between the brunette and the wall. Bodies pressing comfortably against each other, Delia turned to look into Patsy’s troubled gaze, their faces centimeters apart. Propping her head up, Patsy used her right hand to pluck at a few cords of Delia’s crumpled uniform, unwilling to meet her intense gaze.

“Before…we were intent on doing it properly, you know, getting married, but it wasn’t legal and I was too cautious…So that is one of the reasons why we decided to move in together. And then it happened, and you were still set on doing it – you always were, being the fearless one – and so that one night I got all the courage I could muster and we went out to eat and had a lovely time…”

Patsy looked up and blinked away some tears that were threatening to overcome her. Delia wanted to say something, to cradle Patsy and tell her she could stop, that it was all okay, but she needed to know this.

Patsy smiled bitterly before continuing, “…Oh God, you were so lovely. All through dinner you flirted and shot me those little mischievous looks of yours…”

Delia could not help but chuckle along with Patsy before the ginger smiled sadly and choked, “Delia, I almost lost it…right there, in that restaurant… You were so perfect and I was so sick of just smiling through all I was feeling and not doing anything about it… You wanted to order dessert and I just said ‘but I thought you didn’t like cake’.” At this Patsy laughed quietly to herself, but it quickly died in her throat when she observed the blank look on Delia’s face.

“Another story for another time, I guess,” Patsy hurried along, “Anyway, I almost didn’t make it out of that restaurant without touching you, so we skipped out on dessert, paid the bill, and got out of there. At the time we – well mostly you – were watching a relative’s flat while they were in France. I told Trixie that we were going to a party so she wouldn’t have wondered about us. We made it there and I had you all to myself, finally…”

Patsy’s fingers grazed Delia’s cheekbone as she whispered quietly, “It was too much too soon… We had locked the door and were…erm… on the couch when it you just pulled away from me.”

A few tears escaped and trailed down Patsy’s cheek as she murmured, “You pulled away and at first I thought you were backing out on me, I was so scared I had done something wrong… But you knew, you knew what was going to happen, so you pulled away just before you began to fit.”

The pair fell into silence, observing each other peacefully. Delia tentatively reached up and brushed away Patsy’s stray tears.

After a short pause, Delia asked in a hesitant tone, “So…we didn’t do it?”

Patsy raised her eyebrows.

“Unless there is something you haven’t been telling me, then no, we most definitely did not.”

Another short pause.

“Why on earth were we going to have our first time together in my relative’s flat?”

Patsy stared at her incredulously before bursting out in laughter.

“I will say, not the most romantic place to make love,” Patsy giggled, wrapping her arms around Delia lovingly, “I suppose we were just desperate.”

“Hmm,” Delia said. Patsy chuckled and kissed Delia’s hairline and pulled the brunette partially on top of her. Delia giggled and complied, Patsy’s warmth seeping into her own damp and cold uniform. Delia wanted to stay up so she could continue to enjoy the feeling of Patsy’s soft form pressing on hers’, but as the sun rose and London continued to wake up, exhaustion spread throughout her body. Patsy was the watchman, and her fingers were toying gently with Delia’s soft hair and periodically she would plant the minutest of kisses on her cheek. As Delia drifted into her dreams, she took Patsy with her, because through her state of unconsciousness she could still feel the ginger’s touch and it soothed her.

Delia squinted at the far wall, feeling as if she had been in a fist fight. She could feel Patsy’s warmth behind her, and she deduced quite some time had passed because the sun was no longer shining through the window. Through swollen eyes Delia observed the door of their room in silence as memories came crashing over her. “Pats?” The bed creaked as Patsy shifted her body weight. “Yes?” an alert voice asked gently. Delia’s eyes fluttered as a warm hand brushed against her face and she felt her hair, still damp from the tears she had shed. “I was just thinking…do you think that will happen again? I mean, the next time we try to…” Delia whispered, as a certain dread gripped her. The hand paused. “I don’t believe so,” Patsy said, her breath tousling her tresses, “You have gotten so much better. Now please, try not to worry about it.” “But I do worry,” Delia protested, “I want you to be happy, I want us to be truly together, I want…I want…” “Deels,” Patsy breathed, “I am happy.” The ginger’s words soothed the ache that formed in the pit of Delia’s stomach, and she smiled despite herself. “Now please, get some rest Deels,” Patsy commanded in her best nurse’s voice, “You completely exhausted yourself!”


	3. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A once-forgotten character returns to haunt the midwives

Three months later…  
“Maryellen Fallbrook!” Trixie shouted crisply, over the noise of thirty plus children running around her feet. On the far corner, a young and thin woman stood; her face pale and haunted. Trixie’s eyes softened as the woman trudged forward, her facial features becoming more pronounced. Maryellen was trembling violently, her hands clasped so tightly around her handbag that her knuckles turned white. She looked absolutely terrified as her eyes darted around the room warily, yet avoiding eye-contact with anyone. Trixie observed several of the women hush as Ms. Fallbrook passed by, and then whisper mysteriously amongst themselves when the young woman was out of earshot.

“Hello Ms. Fallbrook, if you would follow me,” Trixie said with a sweeping gesture behind a blind. Maryellen glanced at Trixie’s face before sliding past the pixie-haired woman in silence. Trixie released an inaudible sigh; Ms. Fallbrook appeared to be no older than 18.

“Please lay down on the table so I can examine you,” Trixie asked not impolitely, “and let me glance at your papers before we begin…”  
Trixie flipped up the first page and got halfway through the second page when her smile faltered and her fingers fumbled with the papers. Trixie glanced at Maryellen, whose hands were shaking badly as they clung to her handbag over her abdomen.

“Just…one moment, Maryellen, I’ll be right back,” Trixie stammered, backing out of the makeshift room. Trixie trotted into the backroom, trying to keep her voice and expression as calm as possible. When she entered, she found Patsy wearing rubber gloves as she sterilized test tubes in boiling water.

“Patsy!” Trixie hissed, “Look at this!” With a frown, Patsy placed the tongs on a rubber mat and removed the gloves and approached the blonde woman. Trixie turned the papers over so Patsy could examine them for herself.

“…awaiting stitch removal in the perineum area and for pregnancy results to be confirmed,” Patsy murmured softly, “Upon which clinical abortion will be considered in accordance with the law.”

“Remember that rape case you were telling me about a few months ago, the one Delia dealt with?” Trixie asked urgently. Patsy’s eyes widened as her eyebrows disappeared into her hairline.

“You don’t mean…”

“I think it is,” the pixie-haired woman answered somberly, “She looks absolutely pitiful!”

“My God,” Patsy whispered in horror.

“Can you fetch Doctor Turner and meet me in room four?” Trixie asked, “He needs to examine her stitches.”  
 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how accurate those rules are on the termination of a pregnancy in the 1960's.


End file.
